To Defend USSR!

Between the First and Second World Wars the country of Russia underwent very great changes both politically and socially. The former monarchist nation transformed into a communist superpower and in order to enforce its new policies and expand, a large army would be necessary to take care of much of the dirty work. Thus, the centralized Soviet ministry of propaganda became the leading authority on a campaign to increase army recruitment. This poster from 1930 illustrated by Valentina Kulagina, is one part of this government led campaign, and seeks to be persuasive in the act 0f military recruitment with its various artistic nuances.

The first of these artistic choices to grab the viewers attention is the lines of marching red soldiers both in front just slightly below each other. The soldiers in the front, are portrayed as regular infantry riflemen, demonstrating the need of the USSR for regular troops to fill its ranks. The pronounced size and centrality of these soldiers, coupled with their slightly abstract features portray the Red Army as a place for all, although tending to be rather exclusive of women. The second, smaller group of soldiers marching below them display multiple meanings, the first of which being that the army needs more than just infantry, and that support positions in various other army regiments are also in demand. The second meaning being to display the overwhelming size of the Soviet army itself, promoting a sense of national pride in the average citizen at their country’s ability to defend itself.

The second artistic nuance in this poster arrives in the form of the white planes outlined against the sky, in conjunction with the industrial scene in the lower left-hand corner of the poster. These additions, while not necessarily representations of a direct involvement in the defense of the Soviet Union are still crucial to understanding the message behind the poster. As Russia had been involved in World War I, albeit they had withdrawn slightly earlier due to the revolution, they understood that war and the implements involved in waging it were now heavily industrialized and mechanized by almost all of the other major world powers. The use of planes and tanks in land-based conflicts was now all too commonplace and the Soviet Union itself was aware of the need to develop and produce a large number of them in order to protect one of the largest potential battlefronts for them, home. Thus this poster and its reference to air warfare in the form of planes takes advantage of the average persons desire to be a heroic pilot themselves, and could be said to encourage recruitment into the Soviet air force. Coupled with the industrial scene in the left-hand corner however, this poster could be said to be putting forth an alternative agenda of encouraging the masses to join the war industries work force. After all without the workforce the planes would never even exist and it is for that reason this poster includes both the industrial scene and the planes.